


I am the diamond glint on snow

by mariathepenguin



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Also a moderate amount of angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Elsa-centric (Disney), Gen, Missing Moments, but that's as AU as it gets lol, well except for elsa's birthday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21696541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariathepenguin/pseuds/mariathepenguin
Summary: King Agnarr and Queen Iduna’s oldest child is born in the middle of spring when Arendelle is at its prettiest. The fjord sparkles as if someone has scattered crystals in the water, and fresh-blooming flowers line the sides of the streets and adorn the hair and clothes of little children.A canon-compliant set of missing moments, told by each member of the Royal Family of Arendelle.
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 73





	I am the diamond glint on snow

**Author's Note:**

> So, Frozen II is living in my brain and I can’t get it out.
> 
> 1\. This fic spans a few years before Frozen I through to the end of the second movie. It’s split into four parts, told from Iduna, Agnarr, Anna, and Elsa’s perspectives. It’s in rough chronological order but there is quite a bit of overlap, especially between the Anna and Elsa sections.
> 
> 2\. The title is a line from the poem _do not stand at my grave and weep_ by Mary Elizabeth Frye.
> 
> 3\. I saw a tumblr post that says Elsa’s birthday is in December but I’d already written the beginning of the fic and didn’t want to change it, so let’s just go with it.

**Iduna**

King Agnarr and Queen Iduna’s oldest child is born in the middle of spring when Arendelle is at its prettiest. The fjord sparkles as if someone has scattered crystals in the water, and fresh-blooming flowers line the sides of the streets and adorn the hair and clothes of little children. 

It had been a hard winter. The ice had crept down from the mountains further than ever before, killing their winter crops and driving the wolves out of the forest and into their barns and fields to hunt. Spring had arrived right on time and more beautiful than ever as if in apology, and now their people walk the streets with smiles on their faces, cheeks ruddy, their laughter reaching even the high tower where the queen has her writing room.

When she feels the birth pains, she is not afraid. Her mother and her nurse had told her what would happen when the child was ready to be born, but more than that, it is only right and good that this longed-for gift will arrive in the middle of such beauty.

Her daughter is born as the moon starts to set the cool light of the moon dappling the floor near the open window. She slumps down onto her pillows, panting, as the midwife carries her away to clean her. Already Iduna feels empty, as if someone has scooped out a vital part of her, but she bites her lip. Queens should be dignified at all times, she knows, even when contending with this ache that she knows will not go away until she sees her child’s face.

The midwife is efficient, she can see that even in her impatient haze. A bundle is placed in her waiting arms almost immediately, soft and light, barely anything, and she pulls back the fringe of the blanket to meet her daughter.

Unfocused blue eyes stare back in her direction, a chubby fist pressed against a pink cheek. She wants to uncurl that hand, spread out the tiny, almost translucent fingers and hold them against her heart.

“Hello,” she whispers instead, pressing her lips to the wrinkled forehead, noting the wisps of white-blond hair. “Oh, hello, little one.”

There is a weight on the bed beside her, and she turns her head to see Agnarr, staring and speechless, as if he’s taken a hit to the head. She laughs, suddenly, joy flitting through her, and she hands the baby to her father.

“Your heir,” she says, as his hands move awkwardly to support her weight. The baby grunts as he balances her carefully in the crook of his arm, a tiny foot sticking out from the blankets, and she wraps a hand around it. It’s as soft and warm as the rest of her, real and vital, and she bends to give it a kiss. 

*

They name her Elsa, after Agnarr’s grandmother. A simple name, and strong. Elsa only blinks when they tell her this, and yawns, her tiny mouth opening wide.

“Bored with us already,” Agnarr says, but he can’t stop smiling.

*

Elsa is warm to the touch, always. Warm enough that at first Iduna thinks her week-old child has fallen ill, and she worries herself to tears. But Elsa’s eyes are bright and roving, new as they are, and the midwife assures Iduna that her appetite is normal. Still, Iduna takes over bathing her so she can monitor her for any sign of a rash or the pox, inspecting her for any minute change. Elsa bears this with good grace, only letting out the occasional squeak when she feels the examinations have gone on long enough.

A month later, and her baby’s skin is still warm enough that she can feel it through the thin sheets. That’s another thing - Elsa will cry inconsolably if swaddled in anything heavier than the lightest sheets they have. It had been a harrowing week before they had worked it out. Elsa had screamed when she was wrapped up, and wouldn’t settle when she wasn’t, startling herself awake at the movement of her limbs. 

Iduna is terrified all the time, and tired all the time, even with the nursemaids and Agnarr. She’s terrified of the unthinking trust in her daughter’s eyes, wide and so blue that they almost glow, of the soft curl of her small body in the moonlight when it is just the two of them in the early hours of the morning.

And one day, in the middle of the warmest summer Arendelle has had for some time, she walks into her daughter’s room to collect her from her nap, and pauses. Blinks, and rubs her eyes. Even pinches herself to make sure she is truly awake, because her tiny daughter is still sound asleep, thumb in her mouth, covered by the lightest dusting of snow.

There’s no sign of it anywhere but in Elsa’s crib, and she brushes it off her, gently, as the baby sleeps on. As soon as she does, it appears again, in light flurries from Elsa’s tightly clenched fists. 

The snow doesn’t melt, even against Elsa’s overwarm skin, and she eventually picks her up, slowly as she can, rocking her, as her world tilts on its axis.

**Agnarr**

Agnarr has been tasked with keeping Elsa away from her mother while Iduna gives birth, and it’s turning out to be more challenging than he had anticipated. Mid-afternoon, after Elsa has scribbled on all the spare paper he can find for her, he suggests a trip to the apple orchards. Elsa perks up and leads the way out of his office, only pausing to look back and make sure he’s keeping up.

The orchards are at their most beautiful at this time of year, the apples fat and shiny on the trees, the leaves just starting to turn, filling the orchard with reds and greens and golds. He had loved to come and read here when he was a boy.

“It’s pretty, Papa.” Elsa is staring up in wonder, her small hand placed in his, and he can only nod back.

They wander through the trees, Elsa stopping now and then to inspect a leaf or an apple with the total absorption of the very young, and Agnarr is content to follow in her wake.

Elsa trips on an exposed root and lets out a cry, and before he can react there is a flash of blue and she’s sliding away from him on a sheet of sparkling ice. He steps onto it to go after her and nearly loses his footing, and sprints around the edge of the sheet until he reaches her on the far side.

“Oops,” she says, when he picks her up. She doesn’t seem to be upset, just curious, and cranes her neck to peer at the ice. 

“Elsa,” he says carefully. “How did you do that?” Iduna had told him about the snow appearing in her crib when she was just a baby, and it’s happened once or twice since then according to her nursemaids, but he’s never witnessed it before. He takes one of her hands in his, but it’s as warm as ever.

“I fell down,” she says.

“Can you do it again?” he asks, pointing at the ice - not melting at all, despite the comfortable autumn air. Elsa only looks at him, and he gives up.

“An apple, please, Papa,” Elsa says, and he lifts her up so she can reach a low hanging apple from the branches.

They are walking out of the orchard when he sees that flash of blue light again, this time compressed between her hands, as if she’s grasping an oddly-coloured lantern. It disappears as soon as it came, and Elsa is holding an opaque, spherical object.

“Take it,” she says, reaching up to hand it over, and he obeys automatically. It’s so cold he almost drops it, and he balances it on the tips of his fingers.

“It’s an apple, Papa,” Elsa says, eyes expectant, and he picks her up again, smiling as she snuggles into his neck. 

“So it is,” he says.

*

His second daughter is born on the dawn of the next day. She’s so tiny. He’d forgotten how small new babies are until he’s holding the featherlight weight of his newest child. She’s ruddy and restless, small arms waving out of her blankets, red hair sticking up in spikes, and Agnarr blinks back tears. 

Iduna sees though, she always sees, and she snuggles in closer to him, leaning most of her weight against his side as exhaustion takes her over.

“Can I see?” Elsa is peering around the door, guilty and curious in equal measure. She must have slipped away from her minders, but Agnarr can’t find it within himself to care. 

“Come here,” he says, and helps her up onto the bed.

She stares at the baby, now asleep in Agnarr’s arms. She reaches out, looks at Iduna for reassurance, and at her nod, traces a finger down the baby’s exposed arm.

“That’s your sister. Her name is Anna,” Iduna says, voice hoarse with tiredness. “She’s just a baby now, but she’ll grow. And you two will be the best of friends.”

*

He knows something is terribly wrong as soon as he hears Elsa’s shriek. He knows, as soon as he sees Anna, cold and deathly still, a white streak nestled in the rich red of her hair, that nothing is ever going to be the same again.

For the first time in his life, his love for his daughters is outweighed by something even more powerful. Fear fills him in every moment, stalks his every thought. Fear of Anna’s death, of Elsa ruined by her magic, of Iduna dead from the grief of losing their daughters. In his quiet moments, he negotiates as if it is a rival king.

 _I will separate them,_ he says to his racing heart, and it slows down, just a little.

 _I will close the gates,_ he says to his trembling muscles, and they unclench.

 _I’ll teach her to hide it,_ he promises his aching bones, and he can stand steady.

Iduna knows what he is feeling, as she always knows, and he can see the same fear in her, as he has always been able to. She has a greater understanding of magic than he does, of the way in which the natural world interacts with people like Elsa, and she suggests the gloves.

“Barriers will make it harder to use it,” she says, voice steady but eyes wet, and they take the gloves to Elsa, together.

*

Anna suffers too. Anna is not meant to be alone. Anna loves people, loves adventures and singing and laughter. Most of all, Anna loves her sister, and they have taken everything from her in one fell swoop. Neither Agnarr nor Iduna have siblings, and the bond between the sisters had been a wonder to both of them.

Every day that Anna is alone, she wilts a little more, and Agnarr knows that he and Iduna are breaking something beautiful. But _better broken than gone,_ says the fear in his heart, and he does nothing.

*

Icy water rushes into the belly of the ship and rises fast, too fast for them to make their way out. The frantic shouting of the captain on the deck has stopped, anyway, so there is most likely nothing to rush to. Agnarr gathers his wife in his arms, and for the first time in a decade, feels no fear. For one shining moment, he sees the paths he and Iduna might have taken, the choices that may have kept their family intact, and he closes his eyes in defeat.

“They’ll fix it,” says Iduna, who has always known what he’s feeling. “What we’ve done to them. They’ll mend it.”

“It’s more than we deserve,” he says, as water roils around his knees. “The two of them. We were so lucky.”

“They’ll be braver than we were,” Iduna says, and holds tight to him as the water tries to snatch her away. 

There is a creak, and the scream of tearing wood. The water comes rushing in to meet them. And Agnarr, King of Arendelle, is no more.

**Anna**

Elsa is her best friend. 

One time she and Elsa and Mama and Papa had a picnic in a forest near the castle, and when they were done eating Papa played with them until he was too tired, and then she and Elsa had jumped on his back and he had laughed, loud, until she could feel the rumbles, and then Mama had come over and they all held hands and spun and spun, and Anna had been so dizzy, but it was so much fun. She had held Mama and Elsa’s hand, and Mama’s hand was big and Elsa’s hand was just like hers, and Anna had laughed and laughed.

Another time, Elsa had let her climb onto her back so they could take a tray of sugar cookies from the kitchen, and they had gone to the library and eaten them all, and Anna had been so sick, but the cookies were so delicious.

Elsa is so much fun, but she doesn’t like Anna any more. Anna doesn’t know how to write yet, but she draws a picture of a sad ogre. It looks all lumpy and its face is too small but Anna makes sure it has a frowny face. She knows Elsa will understand that she is saying _sorry_ for whatever she did, and she folds it carefully and pushes it under Elsa’s door. 

She hurries away because she’s not supposed to be near Elsa’s room. Mama says that she is sick, and she’ll make Anna sick too, but Elsa’s never been sick before. Maybe if she opens the door then Anna can sing to her and make her feel better. Singing is one of Anna and Elsa’s favourite things, and sometimes they make up songs about all the adventures they’re going to go on together.

The next day, the note is gone, but Elsa still hasn’t opened the door.

“Please, Elsa,” Anna says. Someone put all her things in a room on the other end of the castle, and Anna doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like sleeping alone, or waking up alone. She knows Elsa doesn’t, either. “Please, open the door.”

There’s no answer, but she can hear voices down the hall, and scurries away before she’s seen.

*

Elsa never sends her a message back, and slowly Anna stops checking. She doesn’t say anything when they stop having riding lessons together, or Elsa stops coming down for dinner with Mama and Papa. Anna loves Elsa, but she hates seeing her parents sad, and nothing makes them sadder than asking why Elsa is all hidden away.

She’s so lonely, though, all the time. It gets easier with practice, like writing, or dancing, and Anna has all the time in the world to work on it.

*

When the messenger brings news that their parents have died, she goes to Elsa’s door first. Nothing, as usual, and Anna is tired. She climbs up to her mother’s dressing room and finds one of her old shawls, very slightly frayed around the edges but as bright as if it had been made yesterday, and presses her nose to it, breathing deep.

Grief hits her in a wave, unrelenting, threatening to drag her under. Without her parents, she has no one. No family, no friends to see her through. She wonders if Elsa is sad at all, if she cried like Anna did when she found out. She wonders whether Elsa would feel anything if Anna died, if that would be enough to get her to open that door.

*

Elsa’s pale. Like, _extremely_ pale.

Anna’s still all flustered from the steward shoving her up onto the dais, and she can’t stop herself from staring. Elsa’s just about her height, white blonde hair tucked away in a neat bun, eyes forward like she doesn’t even know Anna’s there, and, wow, they really do look alike. 

Except Elsa looks like something made out of marble, not like her only living relative, someone Anna has vague recollections of cuddling in bed with on especially cold winter nights. She can’t imagine the Elsa of her childhood memories having much in common with the stranger in front of her.

The alabaster cheek closest to her turns a light pink, and Anna realises she’s been caught.

“Hi,” Elsa murmurs, softly. She’s smiling a little, which makes Anna feel like less of an idiot for gawking at the new Queen when she’s supposed to be acting all regal.

“Hi,” she says back, and fights the urge to turn away as bright blue eyes search her face, as if Elsa is just as interested in Anna as Anna is in her. She clasps her hands together to stop them from picking at her dress.

It’s weird. Elsa isn’t sneering at her, or turning away. They’re kind of… talking? Anna doesn’t want to stop and think about it because she knows she’ll mess it up if she does, but it’s nice. Like, really nice. 

Everything moves so fast after she introduces Hans to Elsa, and Anna goes from deliriously happy to confused to blazingly angry in about a minute. Elsa’s pushing her away again, without even telling her _why._

When ice explodes from Elsa’s hands, the glittering shards less than an inch from Anna’s neck, she can only stare. Elsa’s face is frozen, shock and unhappiness and embarrassment swirling in those eyes that Anna can barely remember, but the meaning in them is plain as day.

The crowd around them starts to murmur in anger, and she thinks she hears Weselton screaming about sorcery from the other end of the room, but all she can think of is that maybe Elsa didn’t _want_ to be kept away. 

Elsa looks away, scrambling for the door handle, but Anna is momentarily stuck in place, her brain spinning fast.

Maybe Elsa was afraid. If Anna can show her that she doesn’t have to be - 

And just like that, Elsa’s gone.

*

Elsa won’t stop apologizing for turning her to ice, or telling Anna how brave she was for sacrificing herself for her. Anna keeps telling her that it’s fine, that she’s her sister and that’s what sisters do for each other, and the grateful, disbelieving smile won’t quite leave Elsa’s face.

It’s not like Anna doesn’t know what a big thing she did - that ice blast to the chest had _hurt_ , and hours and hours of feeling her body shut down from the chill isn’t something she’s going to forget anytime soon. She knows. It just pales in comparison to the knowledge that Elsa kept away because she thought she was protecting Anna, that the big, unapproachable sister she spent her childhood trying to reach is just as scared as her. More, maybe, judging by the way Elsa twitches whenever someone makes a sudden noise or movement.

“They love you,” she says to Elsa, after a too-long state dinner, both of them slowly making their way back to their rooms. “Really, they do.” Elsa arches an eyebrow.

“I turned our Kingdom into a block of ice,” she says.

“And you unfroze it! And you won’t do it again, right? If I had ice powers, I’d accidentally freeze stuff all the time. We’d have to wear ice skates all the time to get around.”

Elsa laughs, and Anna decides to be bold and loop their arms together. It’s immeasurably comforting that Elsa doesn’t start at that, only leans a little bit into her.

She knows what she did. She also knows what she got from it: a sister, family, a real home. She knows that they faced something awful and won, and that if they keep trying, they can do it again.

  
  


**Elsa**

Her parents don’t lock her in her room. They don’t have to. She was almost a killer, like those people who have to live in the dungeons and can never come out, ever. If Anna had - and she has to clench her fists, to stop the ice crackling up her arms - if Anna had died, it would have been all her fault.

Anna is loud and squeaky and what the tutors call _high-spirited_ but Elsa calls kind of annoying sometimes, and Elsa loves her with all her heart. If Elsa had killed her, then that would make her the worst person in the entire _world,_ because Anna is her little sister and -

The window next to her bed frosts over and shatters, and she jumps, staring in horror as the ice grows into the room, like a monster coming in from the cold, except it’s coming from _her._

She squeezes her eyes shut, tight, and breathes, focusing on the fresh air, and not on the wildness swirling in her chest.

“Elsa?” Her sister’s lispy voice floats through the keyhole, and she eyes it with dread, as the ice from the window races toward her door. “Do you wanna play?”

“Go _away,_ Anna,” she says, fighting hard to keep her voice steady as her voice closes up.

“Bye,” Anna says, and she sounds sad, but all Elsa cares about is that she’s leaving, and going to somewhere she’ll be safe.

*

She hates the gloves her parents give her. They make her hands itch something awful, and her fingers feel like they are suffocating under the material. But she tugs them on desperately. And they do help. She can still feel the ice - she can always feel the ice, it’s like a shadow that follows her everywhere she goes - but it’s like there’s a little more distance between her and it.

She resolutely ignores the little voice inside her that tells her that she can’t run away from something that’s a part of her, and thanks her parents instead. She jumps away when they try to hug her, panic twisting around her throat like a rope, and she doesn’t miss her father’s tiny flinch at her sudden movement.

 _Conceal, don’t feel,_ she thinks, and flexes her fingers inside her gloves. She’s going to beat this, she knows it.

*

Hans tells her that she has killed her sister, and the wild place in her where the magic lives roars like a feral, caged animal. _Let me out,_ it screams, and then begs, and then whispers, and soon all there is in her is silence.

 _You did it_ , says a voice, quiet. _You always knew you were going to kill her, and you’ve done it._

She closes her eyes, vaguely aware that Hans is advancing toward her. She hears the rasp of his sword as it leaves its scabbard and can’t bring herself to move.

And then Anna saves them both.

*

Anna slips into her room once or twice a week, usually after they’ve had a really long day. Elsa wonders sometimes whether she does it because she really does want the company, or if some part of her likes to check to make sure that Elsa’s door is still open. Either way, Elsa doesn’t mind. She might even love it, strange as it is to have someone in her space after thirteen years of isolation.

But Anna tries hard to be respectful - she hovers at the doorway even after Elsa invites her in, plays with her hands and talks too fast. It’s up to Elsa to grab her hands and pull her in, nudge her in the direction of the window seat or the comfy chair and talk about nothing until Anna’s spine relaxes, and she stops darting her eyes around like she’s in a glittering palace and not just Elsa’s room.

It’s so strange, that a room that had been both her solace and her prison is a place of such wonder for Anna, and she tries to see it through her eyes. 

There isn’t much in the way of decoration, because her ice had destroyed anything her parents had brought her. They had kept it bare, instead, with the exception of the sturdy oak chest at the foot of the bed that held a few of her toys and all the books that would fit in it.

“What would you _do_ all day?” Anna had asked once, when Elsa had explained why her room was the way it was, and she had shrugged.

“Lots of lessons, mostly, and reading. And staring out of the window.” That’s one thing her room really has going for it: a beautiful view of Arendelle, the docks, the fjord, and even some of the mountains. “And trying to control my powers.”

Anna had frowned. “How busy did that really keep you?”

“Very,” she’d admitted. They had tried everything - exercise, rest, concentration and breathing patterns that they found from a book in the library, but inevitably, her parents would walk into her room and find her gloves in tatters, frost clinging to the walls or carpet like a mould. The disappointment on their faces had stricken her, every time. 

Today, Anna is too tired to talk much, which is saying something. They’ve spent the entire week trying to establish new trading partners to make up for the shortfall now that they no longer trade with Weselton, and Elsa’s brain is filled to the brim with wheat and timber quotas and export taxes. Anna’s almost as badly off. As Queen, Elsa has to take the lead and make the final decisions, but she wants her sister to have a hand in ruling as well, and Anna’s been in almost all the meetings. 

Anna’s too tired to do much of anything but flop onto Elsa’s bed, and she grumbles sleepily as Elsa pulls the covers out from under her so she can get in too. 

She can feel her muscles relax as it meets the softness of her mattress, and she sighs in relief. Her ice, pent up from a day of small frustrations and annoyances, takes the opportunity to fizz from her fingertips like tiny fireworks, showering the blanket with ice chips.

“‘S pretty,” Anna mumbles, and Elsa laughs uneasily. Of all the spaces of hers that she now shares with Anna, letting her see her magic is the most nerve wracking.

“You always used to say that,” she says, and Anna’s eyes pop open.

“I did?” Her memories of Elsa’s magic are still hazy. They’re not sure if it’s because Anna was so young when Elsa used it around her, or if it’s a lingering effect of the trolls’ magic, but she’ll often recount a memory of the two of them together and trail off in the middle as if forgetting what she was about to say.

“You did,” Elsa says, and props herself up a little. “You’d wake me up before the sun even rose so we could play. One time we snuck into the root cellar with a shovel, and…”

Sleep can wait a little longer, she thinks, as Anna’s eyes brighten. 

*

She knows what she’s going to do before she reaches the shore. She knows as soon as Ahtohallan releases her from the ice. She can feel Ahtohallan calling her back softly, even as the Nøkk carries her back to the shore near Northuldra. 

There’s something just as strong calling her on this side, though, and she smiles when she sees her sister, shaking and tear streaked, staring at Elsa as if she has never seen her before.

She thinks Anna knows what Elsa is going to say, judging by the way Anna holds her tight, the way that she takes the lead in organising the Arendellian guards. They missed out on years together, but they’ve had time to learn, and Anna is a fast learner. 

She tells Anna that she’s going to stay in the forest on the way back to Arendelle. She was right, Anna had sensed it was coming, but they’re a bridge, the two of them, connected no matter how far apart they are. Anna will always lead her back to where she belongs.

“You won’t even have a chance to miss me,” Anna says, face muffled in Elsa’s shoulder. “We’re going to be here _all the time_. So make sure they get you a really big tent.”

All those years fighting to control her powers, and then struggling to live with them, and now she can just let them _be_. It’s like the first deep breath of a winter breeze, or the coolness of ice on the back of her neck. All those years of pain and fear, all for nothing. But Anna likes to say that they have to keep moving forward, and she’s right. 


End file.
